Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)

James Watson and Francis Crick get credit for determining the structure of DNA, but their discovery relied on the work of Rosalind Franklin. As a teenager in the 1930s, Franklin attended one of the few girls’ schools in London that taught physics and chemistry, but when she told her father that she wanted to be a scientist, he rejected the idea. He eventually relented and she enrolled at Cambridge University, receiving a doctorate in physical chemistry.

She learned techniques for X-ray crystallography while in Paris, returning to England in 1951 to work in the laboratory of John Randall at King’s College, London. There she made X-ray images of DNA. She had nearly figured out the molecule’s structure when Maurice Wilkins, another researcher in Randall’s lab who was also studying DNA, showed one of Franklin’s X-ray images to James Watson. Watson quickly figured out the structure was a double helix and, with Francis Crick, published the finding in the journal  Nature.

Watson, Crick and Wilkins won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for their discovery. Franklin, however, had already died, of ovarian cancer in 1958.

Known for
Structure of DNA Fine structure of coal and graphite Virus structures

Controversies: allegations of sexism at Kings College London and elsewhere, debate over her contribution to the model of DNA (see links on Wikipedia )

Find more
Wikipedia

"My aunt, the DNA pioneer," article by Stephen Franklin for BBC News

Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA

Works based on
(Many, including)

Franklin's part in the discovery of the nature of DNA was shown in the 1987 TV Movie Life Story, starring Juliet Stevenson as Franklin. This movie portrayed Franklin as somewhat stern, but also alleged that Watson and Crick did use a lot of her work to do theirs.

A 56-minute documentary of the life and scientific contributions of Franklin, DNA – Secret of Photo 51, was broadcast in 2003 on PBS Nova.

The first episode of a 2004 PBS documentary serial, DNA, episode title The Secret of Life, centers much around the contributions of Franklin

A Question of Life (2005), a play by  Deborah Gearing about Franklin and her work

Photograph 51 (2011-15), a play by Anna Ziegler, focusing on the 1951–53 "race" for the structure of DNA sometimes emphasizes the pivotal role of Franklin's research and her personality

False Assumptions (2013), a play by Lawrence Aronovitch is about the life of Marie Curie, in which Franklin is portrayed as frustrated and angry at the lack of recognition for her scientific contributions.